New Antiterrorism Tenets Trouble ScientistsResearchers scramble to keep up with rapidly issued rules that
regulate bacteria and toxinsby Peg Brickley

When the anthrax assaults of last fall transformed bioterrorism from
theoretical possibility to reality, Congress wasted little time
cranking out new laws that target laboratory operations. Within weeks
of the attack on the World Trade Center, the USA Patriot Act whipped
through Congress and became law, adding criminal sanctions to existing
"biological weapons" statutes. A scant seven months later, the Public
Health Security and Bioterrorism Response Act was signed, underlining
the need to control access to compounds and pathogens with weapons
potential. ...

... a draft directive from the Department of Defense surfaced in May
and touched off a furor among scientists and university research
administrators. Not a law or a White House policy, to many, it was an
amorphous and ominous compendium of restrictions on free communication
and free travel. Particularly worrisome to scientists are proposed
restrictions on the right to publish findings and data for
examination, verification, and expansion.

... An arm of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) submitted its
report on vulnerability in America's croplands for approval by the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the new Department of Homeland
Security before its publication in September.(1) "At its own
discretion, the National Academies decided to remove certain detailed
and specific information from the report," the National Research
Council said in a Sept. 19 press release.

... The [NAS panel studying the rules and processes aimed at
preventing the life sciences from being turned to the purposes of mass
destruction]'s discussions with White House policy makers and those in
the homeland agency reveal grave concerns about the handling of
"sensitive information," but no definition of sensitive materials, she
says. "It's hard to comply with something when it's formless."

Scientists who assumed they operated as part of a global community
were discomfited by crackdowns on contacts with international students
and colleagues. An early presidential directive ordered measures to be
put into place that would "end the abuse of student visas" and keep
"certain" international students out of "sensitive areas" of study.
...

While the rules are being batted around, some working researchers
are simply dumping material that could wind up on the select-agent
list. To some, that seems the safe and sensible thing to do, so that
when auditors come knocking, nothing that could trigger their
suspicions is on hand.

To others, the quiet voluntary dumping of pathogen samples is the
scientific equivalent of book burning. Some samples are historical
collections of strains that may provide the key to future cures.
Researchers have been holding onto them for years, waiting for time or
technology to unlock their potential. Now they are being destroyed in
fear of regulation, not fear of bioterrorism. "We'll comply with
whatever the federal government wants us to do," says Ellyn Segal,
biosafety manager at Stanford University. "But compliance is going to
be difficult because they're still not defining the dangers."